Tensions remain high near the United States’ border with Mexico, where an influx of illegal immigrants in recent months, mostly children, has divided the community.

Anti-immigration demonstrators continue to stand guard in the
small southern California town of Murrieta, where upwards of 150
activists assembled last week to prevent the arrival of three
buses carrying undocumented aliens scheduled for processing from
reaching a local US Border Control station around 60 miles north
of San Diego.

A standoff between anti- and pro-immigration protesters continued
through the weekend, and initial reports suggested that federal
officials were rumored to be weighing the possible deployment of
riot police to accompany further busses this week. Those reports
have so far failed to materialize, but activists are nevertheless
remaining on the scene to wait and see what will happen next, and
fears of clashes occurring between both sides persist.

Arrests have indeed occurred during the last week as protesters’
verbal remarks became replaced in some instances with physical
altercations, and a Border Patrol spokesperson told the Daily
News that further demonstrators could expect to be detained if
they block the route of any other federal busses, like the ones
that last week that were unable to bring immigrants into
Murrieta. According to Breitbart News, anti-immigration
demonstrators have begun to circulate flyers warning protesters
that they should expected to be arrested and prepare accordingly.

"Should protestors block entry or exits to CBP property,
local law enforcement will be called to respond," the
federal spokesperson told the paper.

Veronique Dupont, a journalist with AFP, wrote this week that
protesters opposed to the influx — and the use of the federal
government and taxpayer money to remedy the migration — show no
signs of letting up.

"Why not have all the oppressed children from Sudan or
Ukraine or China come here as well?” one local protester,
Greg Allison, asked AFP sarcastically.

"They should have been quarantined in Texas," added
another, 71-year-old Dan Russell, who told Dupont that the
children crossing into the US are carrying polio and the H1N1 flu
virus.

Countering the droves of activists opposed to using federal money
and facilities to process the undocumented immigrants are
demonstrators who say that the children traveling en masse across
the border should be considered refugees. Demonstrators on that
side of the argument have reportedly since garnered the support
of the National Council of La Raza, the largest national Hispanic
civil rights and advocacy organization in the US, whose members
have been seen at the latest rallies in and around border towns.
Advocates who want the children to be accepted into the US warn
that minors are being tortured in their home countries, and that
American officials shouldn’t be expediting their return, but
welcoming them.

It’s been largely reported that more than 52,000 unaccompanied
minors from the countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras
have been detained since last October while attempting to sneak
across the border into the US — double the statistics from the
previous year.

The White House is next expected to ask Congress for $3.8 billion
largely intended to find fund measures intended to deal with the
influx, including the hiring of more immigration judges.
Nevertheless, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Monday
that most of those thousands of children who crossed into the US
recently would likely not be eligible to stay and would soon be
sent back to the other side of the border.

And while no busses did arrive in Murrieta as expected on Monday
carrying immigrants to be processed, Texas Governor Rick Perry
told the White House that day that a proposed yet brief meeting
with president this week as the commander-in-chief tours the
state would not suffice, and that the two must engage in a “a
thoughtful discussion regarding the humanitarian and national
security crises enveloping the Rio Grande Valley in South
Texas.”

Within hours, Valerie Jarrett, a senior aide to Mr. Obama, wrote
the governor once again to invite him to discuss the crisis with
the president, local elected officials and faith leaders during
this week’s stop in the Lone Star State.

Now as a standoff between pro- and anti-immigration activists
rages on, Pres. Obama will for the first time address the matter
directly when he meets with those close to the crisis later this
week.

“As you know, the administration continues to address this
urgent humanitarian situation with a whole-of-government response
on both sides of the border,” Jarrett wrote Perry on Tuesday
this week. “This includes appropriate care for unaccompanied
children, as well as aggressive steps to surge resources to the
Southwest border to deter both adults and children from embarking
on this dangerous journey, increasing capacity for enforcement
and removal proceedings, and quick return of recent unlawful
border crossers to their home countries after appropriate
humanitarian screenings have taken place and they are determined
to be removable.”